Maintaining the theme relevant and updated is quite mandatory since your goal is to be relevant for the long game. Our goal is to help you achieve great results that are sustainable and one of the way we do that is by investing resources in product updates.

In this article, we walk you through the steps you need to take to update your theme with ease.

There are three main areas where you can see the notification for a new update:

Log into your WordPress Dashboard, click on Updates and update all of your outdated themes;

Go to Appearance → Themes, and you will notice a badge with the New version available over the outdated theme. Just click on that message and hit the Update now button;

Go to Appearance → Theme Dashboard, and you will see a banner with the New Theme Update is Available!

What should I do to be able to update the theme?

You might get this kind of message: An error occurred while updating Listable: Update package not available when trying to update the theme through the Dashboard → Updates area.

On the other hand, you can get this one Automatic update is unavailable for this theme when looking for the Update now button on Appearance → Themes area.

To have access to the automated updating system, you need to update the theme license first. To do that, just follow these simple steps:

Make sure that you installed and activated the Pixelgrade Care plugin;

If it’s not available in your Dashboard (the blue button named Theme Help), just go to Appearance → Install Plugins and take it from there;

Go to Appearance → Theme Dashboard area;

Click the Connect to pixelgrade.com button;

Login with your account:

If you purchased the theme via ThemeForest, just click the Login with Envato button and add the credentials for the account used to purchase the theme;

If you bought the theme from our shop, just log in to your account;

Once the process is completed, your theme will be activated and ready to be used.

I connected my account, but I still cannot update the theme

Most of the times, this problem appears because you don’t have an active support period for your license. In this particular case, the automated updating system is not available. Verify if you have an active support period by going to the My Account page and double check the message.
If you see a message like Active. You have about 6 months of support remaining. — then you know that you can surely activate the theme without any struggles.

I have an active support period, but I still cannot activate the theme license

If you still cannot activate the license even if you have an active support period, please go to My Account page and Logout. Now go to Appearance → Theme Dashboard and hit the Disconnect button from the right side. Once you did this, just follow again the following instructions about activating the theme, and everything should be back to normal in just a few minutes.

Can I manually install the theme without using the automatic updating system?

Yes, you can do that with no problem. You just need to follow these steps:

Go to your ThemeForest account;

Open the Downloads page;

Download the theme;

Go to your website dashboard area;

Activate another theme (like Twenty Seventeen);

Delete the existing version of the theme you want to update;

Install the version of the theme that you just downloaded from ThemeForest;

Activate back the theme.

Is there any backup system available for the updates?

There’s no backup option for updating the themes. That’s why, before making any change on this, we recommend you make a backup of your whole website. This way, if anything goes wrong (chances are that this won’t ever happen) you can quickly go back to a working version of your website.

Will I lose the changes I made in the Appearance → Customize area when updating the theme?

No worries, you will not lose changes from the Customize while updating the theme. No matter if you played around with the font or the color options or you simply added a custom CSS to the Additional CSS area everything will remain the same.

Will I lose the changes I made inside the theme files?

We know that there are times when you want to make some small tweaks to improve the overall look‐and‐feel. Therefore, you need to know that all the changes should be done using a child theme. This way, you make sure that everything you mix‐and‐match will be safe when the next update of the theme is available and ready to go.

What happens when we change the theme or directory name?

There are two cases here:

Changed the theme name: if you update the theme, the name of the theme will go back to the original one (e.g. Rosa, Julia);

Changed the folder name: in this case, the updating system won’t be able to track your theme and you won’t get any notification about new updates available for your theme.

That’s why it’s better to keep the name untouched. This way, you’ll get automatic access to the latest updates and nothing will break or be damaged.